Saudi security forces detained around 70 demonstrators as they put on a show of force across the kingdom Thursday to quell a wave of protests called for by an exiled opposition group. All of the arrests were in provincial towns. In the capital, a massive deployment by riot police prevented any demonstration by sympathisers of the banned London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA). Some 50 people were detained in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, five of them women. Another 13 were picked up in Hail, north of Riyadh, and at least five were arrested in Dammam, in the oil-rich Eastern Province. According to an official version of the demonstrations carried by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), a "limited number of individuals" rallied on Thursday afternoon in Jeddah, Hail and Dammam, drawing "a number of people who came out of curiosity or because they knew what was going on." Security forces moved to halt the protests "to safeguard public order," SPA said.
| Public order being defined as the princes' heads... |
Participants "are being interrogated and will be referred to the Islamic court," the news agency added.
| "Bailiff! Flog them all!" |
In Jeddah, "around 100 people tried to demonstrate on Andalus Street in Midan al-Bawakher (Ships Square) on Thursday afternoon, but security forces confronted them, arresting about 50, including five women, while the rest dispersed," said one witness contacted from Riyadh. Some of the protesters, who chanted "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) as they fled, took cover in a supermarket, the witness said. Security forces continued to patrol the streets after the demonstration was dispersed, he added.
| Did they arrest the guys carrying groceries? |
In Hail, 13 people, who attempted to march in a vegetable market in the center of the city, were all rounded up by security forces, witnesses said. In Dammam, dozens of people attempted to march from a mosque in the center of the city calling for the release of detainees but were stopped by security forces who arrested at least five protesters. Security forces, including riot units, had deployed in the area around the mosque, blocking roads leading to the site of the protest. The attempted demonstrations were called by MIRA to denounce what it termed "injustice and corruption in the kingdom" following a rare rally in Riyadh last week. In the capital, a massive police deployment around the mosque that was meant to serve as the starting point for the demonstration prevented it ever taking place, a correspondent at the scene said. Dozens of police cars and jeeps used by riot units and special forces patrolled the area around the mosque in the al-Rabwa suburb of Riyadh. Ambulances and civil defense cars were also seen parked around the area, but there was no sign of any rally well after the planned starting time following afternoon prayers. Police vehicles prevented motorists from entering sidestreets leading to the mosque and pedestrians were turned away from its immediate vicinity.
| "Youse gotta permit to go to that mosque?" |
Checkpoints were set up on a main road leading to the neighborhood, and police stopped some cars.
| "Hmmm... Y'ain't from around here, air yew?" |
The Saudi authorities had warned they would not tolerate any further street protests after a rare rally in a main thoroughfare of Riyadh on October 14 that had been called by MIRA to demand the release of detained dissidents. Protests "violate existing rules and anyone who takes part in them will be subjected to deterrent punishment meted out by the Islamic court," Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz said late Wednesday. His ministry issued a statement saying that 83 of the people arrested at last week's rally, including three women, were still in custody and would appear in court.
| Unless the calaboose burns down first, of course... |
"Authorities arrested 271 people, of whom 188 were freed after proving that they had been drawn into the crowd and acted out of curiosity," a spokesman said.
| "Get outta here, and don't let me see you in my Islamic courtroom again!" |
Another warning came from the head of the kingdom's Higher Judiciary Council, Sheikh Saleh bin Mohammad al-Luhaidan, who said in remarks published by the daily Okaz Thursday that demonstrations were "demagogic" and authorities were duty-bound to "stand up firmly" to such activities. Calls for demonstrations and sit-ins "amount to calls for strife, and to an attempt to spread vice and undermine security," he said. |